Sunday, March 27, 2011

This budget is bond dependent

Paris Selectboard meets 3-28-11, 7pm, town office.

ATV use of public roads, lawsuits, candidates for possible selectboard vacancies, cutting spending to lower our taxes, and more. These items are all on the table. But concerned citizens need to understand that there is a more subtle issue at stake, as well.

On January 24, with a vote of 4-1, The Paris Selectboard voted to "set as a goal to flat line the budget for the whole Town and freeze wages for all Town employees". [ in minutes from Paris selectboard meeting 1-24-11 ]

The Committee preparing the budget for Paris' fiscal year 2011-12 has taken this to heart and have been working to ensure that nothing less than this very thing is presented to voters at the June town meeting. Well, no one likes tax bills that keep coming and coming and never get any smaller, do they? Surely we can do with less all around - cut here and slash there - just STOP SPENDING. If we cut spending today there will be nothing coming due tomorrow, right? The piper never demands payment? The clock can be stopped? Don't we wish.

No matter what we want, to ignore looking at what today's shortcuts will bring tomorrow is reckless. If we're going to agree to cut spending, let's do it with eyes wide open, study options, understand consequences. Tightening one's belt doesn't have to be irresponsible.

There are what looks like red flags in the budget being worked on right now. There seems little opportunity - or worse, no one with whom - to have a discussion or debate on issues that are going to affect this town and all of us in it. A committee member herself even asked, when the issue of finding a less expensive health insurance for employees came up, and she was told they had to move on, "When can we talk about this? I don't want this to fall into a hole."

Let's take the Highway Department budget. Roads are a touchy subject around here especially at the end of winter. It takes a huge chunk of money to build and maintain roads. Some hundreds of thousands. So, if one wanted to cut spending this budget would offer an opportunity or 2.

In this year's proposed highway budget, Mgr. Tarr managed to shave roughly 10 thousand dollars from last year's total....but in a budget that's supposed to be flatlined, under "capital improvements," we find a brand new line item this year for $180,000. A new truck. The funds will come from other shaving in other places...but: to paraphrase what one selectman has adamantly verbalized over and over, why would we need to spend this now when things are so tight? Why could it not go into the hole-in-the-dike plugging needs we seem to be surrounded with?

During the 3-17 budget committee meeting, the answer became more and more apparent when Mgr. Tarr was asked firmly to go back and make his budget even flatter. He replied that he didn't want to touch surplus, and he didn't want to reduce capital balance. But he felt that he could certainly make more cuts. And now, the solution he has been hinting at for quite a while has become the fixing thing. He responded to the Budget Committee Chair, "This budget has become bond dependent."

Many towns have bond money at work in their municipality - it is not uncommon. But it is the beginning of something, not an end-all. And the public works program (read that "road building at the local level") he is proposing to use part of the money for needs to be examined very carefully.

When is all that going to come before the public? For questions and discussion, not just a nice friendly and efficient agenda that includes closing up the world when the chairman is done talking.

TPR will follow up on this topic. There are questions about the $180 K truck; about what was cut out of the Highway Dept.'s budget that added up to the $10,000; about this particular road building plan; and about the bond option. Some of this information cannot wait to be talked about in a hearing where there is only rubber stamping involved, or until the town meeting in June. If great and grand plans are about to be set in motion - on our dime - some of us cry Time! We need to talk.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Continuing saga

Monday March 14 the Paris selectboard will meet at 7pm in the Fire Station. There will be a little business covered, some bills paid, an appointment or 2. Agenda here.

And then, more of what we've had...and had...and had:

(1) ATV use of public roads on Paris; and, an even older, more worn out topic,(2) who pays for the upkeep of Town Farm Road?

While the facts of the matter on either topic can be - and have been - presented ad nauseum, it is not the facts that TPR wishes to address.

TPR's 2-13 article stated an interest in "how the decision makers - our selectboard - function in general." This perspective of who runs the town and how effective they are in meeting the needs of the majority has been an underlying theme for TPR from the onset. Paris' town government has had almost 2 years of major change upon major change; yet the more things change, the more they sometimes seem no different.

The administration, that is the town manager, and his immediate overseers, the selectboard, our elected officials, still need not only our support, but our scrutiny.

We still have the issue of the rights involved in ATVs using parts of public roads to connect their trails, and who decides that. Dealing with this is difficult enough, without the additional dynamic of having to deal with someone grandstanding and seeking personal aggrandizement.

There is a practicing lawyer on the selectboard who has not denied meeting in his office with parties from one side of this issue. He now needs to be asked, by his fellow board members, to recuse himself from any further discussions, decisions, and actions on this topic as long as he is on the selectboard. Even the "appearance of impropriety" should be avoided. 30-A M.R.S.A.§2605(6)

And then we have the Town Farm Road. It is not TPR's interest to pursue the ins and outs of the case. Suffice it to say the argument between the Town of Paris and the residents in the Town Farm Road Association stems from a disagreement on who should maintain the road into their private development.

Atty. D. Hanley presented the Association's argument to the town 2-2005. The town consulted with the firm of Kurtz and Perry, and in April of that year the town's position was explained in a letter to Atty. Hanley from then Mgr. S. Jackson. On or about 3-30-05, the firm of Kurtz and Perry billed the town $1,125, and again 4-11-05, for $225, for consultation on the Town Farm Road.

Atty. Hanley tried again 4 years later; on the agenda of the 11-09-09 selectboard meeting, he expounded for 30 minutes with the same request. The 2009 board could not change the 2005 decision because after the original decision it had become a court matter.

And now, a lawsuit has been filed by the Town Farm Road Association, according to the 3-14-11 agenda, and there will be still another discussion. Practicing Attorney - Selectman Kurtz should recuse himself from any discussion, decision, or action on this topic, now, and for as long as he is a member of this selectboard.

The MMA Municipal Officer's Manual states in its section on "Conflict of Interest", p. 16:
"All municipal officers have been sworn into public office to serve the interests of the public as a whole and in the municipal official there is a vested public trust."

The appearance of impropriety is at issue in both cases. Our selectboard needs to step up and take action, and not to allow this sort of thing to continue. A selectman who quotes the law at every turn should also be held accountable to it.